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The impact of basic state on quasi-biennial periodicity of central Pacific ENSO over the past decade

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Abstract

El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon lately appears to have a much fast pace with four warming events in the past decade (2002–2012). Three out of four events have their warming centers confined in the equatorial central Pacific. It is argued that the anomalous zonal sea currents are responsible for the fast transition of the central Pacific warming. Furthermore, based on the heat budget analysis, it is found that zonal advective feedback appears to play an important role in the phase transition of central Pacific ENSO, although the thermocline feedback process that is essential for ENSO, as delineated by the recharge/discharge oscillator theory, also contributes but mainly in the eastern Pacific. A stability analysis is performed using a simple stripped-down coupled model with two different basic state settings derived from the periods over 1982–2001 and 2002–2012, respectively. In the two periods, the basic states show different distribution along the equator and the leading ENSO-like eigen-modes have very different periods and patterns. The mode under the basic state in the earlier period resembles the eastern Pacific ENSO with a period about 5 years, whereas under the basic state in the recent decade, the ENSO mode becomes more like the observed central Pacific ENSO with a period about 2 years. The slow eastern Pacific ENSO mode is dominated by the thermocline feedback and behaves more like the recharge oscillator, whereas the zonal advective feedback plays a significant role in the fast-paced central Pacific ENSO mode. These results are roughly consistent with the broad features of two types of ENSO. In addition, the zonal advective feedback contributes to the phase transitions of both types of ENSO-like modes. In a word, the recent fast-paced ENSO activities in the central Pacific is suggested due to the dominance of zonal advective feedback favored by the tropical Pacific basic state conditions in the past decade.

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Notes

  1. The altimeter products were produced by the CLS Space Oceanography Division as part of the Environment and Climate EU ENACT project (EVK2-CT2001-00117) and with support from CNES.

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Acknowledgments

Dr. Ruihuang Xie and Prof. Fei Huang are jointly sponsored by the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program: 2010CB951403 and 2012CB955604) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40975038, 40830106, 41230420). Prof. F.-F. Jin is jointly supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) Grants ATM1034798 and DOE Grant DE-SC0005110. Dr. Jian Huang is supported by National Public Benefit Research Foundation (Meteorology) (GYHY200906008). Dr. Xie thanks the Chinese Scholarship Council for providing financial support during visiting Prof. F.-F. Jin. The authors thank two anonymous reviewers for their assistance in evaluating this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Meteorology, Physical Oceanography Laboratory and Key Laboratory of Ocean–Atmosphere Interaction and Climate in Universities of Shandong, Ocean University of China, Qingdao, Shandong, 266100, China

    Ruihuang Xie & Fei Huang

  2. Key Laboratory of Ocean Circulation and Waves, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Ruihuang Xie

  3. Department of Meteorology, School of Ocean and Earth Sciences and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, 96822, USA

    Fei-Fei Jin

  4. Guangzhou Institute of Tropical and Marine Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, Guangzhou, Guangdong, 510080, China

    Jian Huang

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  1. Ruihuang Xie
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Correspondence to Fei Huang.

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Xie, R., Huang, F., Jin, FF. et al. The impact of basic state on quasi-biennial periodicity of central Pacific ENSO over the past decade. Theor Appl Climatol 120, 55–67 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-014-1150-y

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